Hilcorp Ventures, the real estate and investment company owned by Houston's Hildebrand family, is demolishing one of its downtown properties, a worn-out office tower across from the Hilcorp headquarters.

Demolition work has started on the 10-story Americana Building at 811 Dallas. The tower will be removed floor-by-floor, but the garage beneath it will stay, the company said Tuesday. There are no immediate plans to redevelop the site.

The property is across Travis from the Hilcorp tower, which was built on the site of the former Foley's department store. The building is the headquarters for Hilcorp Energy, a private exploration and production company founded by Jeffery D. Hildebrand.

The Americana building was developed in 1961 and contains 188,000 square feet of space, according to research firm Enriched Data.

Doug Kelly, president of Hilcorp Ventures, said the office and retail tenants moved out last spring, around which time there was a fire in the building that left minimal damage.

Hilcorp plans to refurbish the roughly 30,000-square-feet of ground-floor retail space and lease it to new tenants.

Over the years, the shop space housed James Coney Island, Subway and other fast-food restaurants and service providers.

The 550-car garage spans both sides of the block, but the office building sits atop just the southern half. The north half of the garage will remain open during construction.

The full garage should reopen early next year.

Kelly said Hilcorp considered renovating the office building, but it didn't believe it could earn a return on the investment.

The company is not under any pressure to redevelop the site, Kelly said, adding: "It's a long-term hold."

Nancy Sarnoff covers commercial and residential real estate for the Houston Chronicle and the paper’s two websites: Chron.com and HoustonChronicle.com. She also hosts Looped In, a weekly real estate podcast about the city’s most compelling people and places. Nancy is a native of Chicago but has spent most of her life in Texas.